Magic: Dr. Jerry Buss wanted Scott as coach

EL SEGUNDO – Byron Scott said Tuesday that he grew up in Inglewood, sneaking into the Forum to watch Jerry West and the Lakers, dreaming of one day playing for them. After that happened and he won three titles in L.A., Scott transitioned to coaching and dreamed of stalking the sidelines for the Lakers.

With his official introduction as the Lakers head coach on Tuesday, that happened, too.

And while Scott said he never discussed coaching the Lakers with the team’s owner, Dr. Jerry Buss, who died in 2012, the 53-year-old Scott may have narrowly missed a chance earlier in his career.

Magic Johnson, who made an appearance at Scott’s introductory press conference with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Jamaal Wilkes, said Buss told Johnson in 2010 that he was interested in hiring Scott to replace Phil Jackson in 2010 when Jackson retired.

Johnson said he and Buss talked in a Staples Center suite and Buss said, “Earvin, you know, I would love, I think, for Byron to coach this team … One day.”

Jackson did not retire until 2011, a year after Scott was hired as the head coach of the Cleveland Cavaliers.

But that didn’t stop Johnson from viewing the exchange as a missed opportunity for Scott and the Lakers.

“Byron took the Cleveland job,” Johnson said, “but he took it too early. I called him and said, ‘B, you took that job too early, Dr. Buss wanted you to be the coach.’ But he had to make a decision, of course.”

Scott and Buss remained close even while Scott coached New Jersey, New Orleans and Cleveland. When Scott was fired by the Hornets in 2009, he said, Buss was one of the first to call.

"He asked me when I was coming home," Scott said. "He wanted me to come to a game. I came to a couple of games and we stayed in contact, but we never really talked about me coaching the team. He asked my opinion of the team, but never talked about coaching the team."

The Lakers are just 113-117 under three different coaches since Jackson retired, including Bernie Bickerstaff’s five-game interim stint in 2012.

However, this summer marked the first time since Johnson's conversation with Buss that Scott was unemployed when the Lakers found themselves without a coach.

"It’s hard to select a coach when he’s employed by another team," Lakers General Manager Mitch Kupchak said. "So the timing has to be right. We have to not have a coach and then the coach who you might want has to be available. So some of those things are out of your control. But we knew early on. ... From the very beginning there was always a lot of support for Byron to coach here."

Johnson addressed a group of reporters shortly after Scott’s press conference concluded, and the former Lakers point guard was all smiles.

“This is really a great moment for all of us,” he said. “The fans are going to be happy, the players are going to be extremely happy. Because when you think about Kobe, (he) is the one whose won championships. So everybody else has to be taught how to do that. What better teacher to have than a coach who’s won championships and also a player like Kobe to be on the court so they can help everybody understand the Laker way of doing things?”

Johnson has been intensely critical of the Lakers organization in recent years, questioning Mike D’Antoni’s coaching and Jim Buss’s management in frequent Twitter posts amid last season’s 27-55 slide.

“The last couple of years have been so bad for me personally,” Johnson said. “I will always be a Laker. So when they’re winning, they’re successful, it makes me feel good. It makes this city feel good.”

While Scott seemed a likely choice for the Lakers from the beginning of their search, Johnson said he was an early advocate for his former teammate, talking to him about the possibility of coaching the team as early as five months ago.

“I told him what I said last season,” Johnson said, starting with the Lakers troubles on defense rebounding. He also said D’Antoni struggled to define players’ roles, which created problems on the court.

“He’s going to do all those things,” Johnson said. “I’m so happy because Coach Scott is a very disciplined man and he’s going to instill that in this team and that’s what we need right now. We need somebody that can come in and really help these guys understand that if we’re going to win and be successful, it starts at the defensive end.”

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